The star of Lost In Translation and The Other Boleyn Girl has turned her hand to singing, and the album features covers of tracks by Tom Waits. David Bowie performs backing vocals. Reaction has been mixed, with some critics suggesting she stick to the day job.

The video is conceived as a day in the life of the star, showing her in the make-up studio, in front of the cameras and meeting fans, before returning home. The brief scenes featuring Sir Salman carry no explanation.

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Miss Johansson is currently dating young actor Ryan Reynolds, but in the past has expressed a preference for the older man, which could provide a clue to Sir Salman’s appearance.

“I’ve always mixed with people older than me. I’m often told I appeal to older men more than guys my own age. I think that’s pretty cool. Older men understand women more. They usually have better taste. I take it as a compliment,” she has said.

His most recent wife was Padma Lakshmi, a statuesque model turned TV presenter 23 years his junior. She left him last year and they are currently divorcing.

Miss Lakshmi was wife number four, but Sir Salman claimed this week that he does not believe in marriage.

“It’s strange, given that I’ve been married four times, but I actually don’t think marriage is necessary,” he tells next month’s Elle magazine.

“Girls like it, especially if they’ve never been married before - it’s the dress. Girls want a wedding, they don’t want a marriage. If only you could have weddings without marriages.”

The Booker Prize-winning author, knighted last year for services to literature, went into hiding in 1989 when the Ayatollah Khomeini issue a fatwa calling for his execution.

He returned to public life a decade later and is now a regular on the social scene. This is not his first unlikely cameo - he has appeared on stage with Bono, the singer from U2, and played himself in the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary.